Adventure Game Studio

Looks great Darkdan, I will check this out real soon. Congrats on finishing your first game, looks like you did a good job.

I'll report back when I get some time to play it.

great news, congratulations on that ;)
but
can you please upload it somewhere else? it is really frustrating downloading it at such a s- l- o-w speed
thanks

Played a bit.

Did you let people beta test this?
-You renamed the exe after compiling it, so winsetup is now useless unless you rename the exe back to notarpg.exe (make sure AGSEditor doesn't run, rename the game dir, delete the Compiled folder, then open and compile the game again).
-The walking speed is agonizingly slow, and actually too slow for the walking animation.
-Gilbert is clickable and thus obscures hotspots behind him, but interacting with him only gives the default responses. I don't know if later in the game the player has to use inventory on him or something, but if they don't I'd make Gilbert not clickable.

Other than that, the game seems to be pretty polished, so I'd definitely fix those and have a few people test the game before publishing a fixed version, would be a pity otherwise for this very promising first game!

Oh Darkdan â€" You make me really happy!   (http://www.smileyvault.com/albums/userpics/12962/smilie_girl_192.gif)

*downloading*

Thank you, Khris, I renamed the .exe to his old name and uploaded it before looking at the other things.

Tabata, I really hope you'll still be happy after having played the game...  ;D

Was a nice little game, I had a lot of fun! Congratulations on this one

Hello sthomannch, I am glad you liked Venator  :)

That was a really good game. Thank you

The graphics style and animations were perfect for the game. I'm not so sure about the music, though. The story was good and the puzzles were the right difficulty to keep the game fun and moving. I had to "cheat" twice using the medallion but I guess that's what it's for!

The story was quite well developed for a short game like this.

Good luck!

SHADOW

Thank you for playing.

... And yes, the medallion is there to help when needed but you can beat the game without using it ;)

Venator games crash when try to interact the window at the front house (the left one near the door)

Games link

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=detail&id=1493

Crash game photo

http://www.imagebam.com/image/718979158079661

Thank you Arjunaz78. It is something I'll have to correct.

In the meantime, to avoid the crash, click in the middle of the window.

Edit : corrected file uploaded.

Darkdan,

This game is pretty impressive just as it is, more so because this is your first effort and especially since you didn't have any beta testers. 

The graphics were well done.  I've seen games go "cartoon-like", but you had "comic book art" which came across nicely.  Between the art, the hair, and the music, I kept thinking of the Dagwood comic strip.

My first impression upon starting the game was that you were going to go more for laughs.  The introduction showing a slacker main character who picks up a crow as a sidekick, and then the crow heckles him continuously.   After that, however, Greedy turns out to be quite a nasty piece of work.  The end result was light-hearted ghost hunting, where I had been expecting more out and out laughter.

You really could have benefitted from some beta testers.  Khris all ready commented on this once, so I won't belabor the point too much, but the game suffered from “creative spelling” and weird grammar.  (I assume English is not your first language.)

The length, puzzles and pacing were really dead on.  Yes, Gilbert should have walked faster (I set the speed to maximum), but with the introduction of the Medallion the players had the chance to skip ahead and even that still had a puzzle.  I never found the key to the safe in the office, yet, I was able to finish the game without having to spend a hour or two randomly wandering through rooms, clicking on everything and trying all sorts of bizarre combinations I might have missed on the first go around.  Honestly that is an awesome idea.  The use of magic, talking to books and pentagrams, the items required to cast the spells, it all came together beautifully. 

At some point in the game you should explain why it's called Venator -- A family of magic users can translate Latin, but most of your players can't.

BUG:

Spoiler

All of this was at the RIVER HOUSE:

If you pick up the items from the spectral essence pentagram before finishing your vision of the past, the pentacle disappears and you never get the information.

Also, if you set it up and leave.  The pentagram stays and the pool of essence forms in the same spot.  I was able to get the childhood memories to play twice.

[close]

Looking forward to your next creation, and volunteering to be a beta tester!


- Cogliostro

Cogliostro,

Thank you for your detailed advice. As you said, english is not my native language...

I will consider all you said and make some corrections to the game.

I am glad you had some fun playing and I'll remember your offer to besta test a next game.

I may have found another small glitch:

Spoiler

If you use any item on Elias' office front door, the character animation gets stuck on the idle (?) frame.

[close]

Another thing (about the medallion/safe puzzle):

Spoiler

Like Nick of All Trades (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=44763.msg598858#msg598858) I can't find the solution to this puzzle. My answer was: http://tinyurl.com/6pt7mat (http://tinyurl.com/6pt7mat)

[close]

Another glitch or just me messing up?

Very entertaining game! I'm really enjoying it.

Stefano, thank you for playing the game and for your report.

I'll upload a new file soon wich fixes all reported bugs (yours and Cogliostro's)... and... a fast walking Gilbert  ;D

edit : done.

Quote from: Darkdan on Wed 09/11/2011 21:55:18
Stefano, thank you for playing the game and for your report.

I'll upload a new file soon wich fixes all reported bugs (yours and Cogliostro's)... and... a fast walking Gilbert  ;D

edit : done.

Could you please use a more standard compression? I've got nothing that handles .ACE - why not use 7Zip?

Quote from: Sslaxx on Thu 10/11/2011 13:12:56
Could you please use a more standard compression? I've got nothing that handles .ACE - why not use 7Zip?

I didn't either - so I downloaded one and it worked fine. 
http://legroom.net/software/uniextract (http://legroom.net/software/uniextract)

(To be honest, I hadn't even heard of ACE files before!)

Wonderful game with wonderful graphics, in my opinon. Got a bit tedious watching Gilbert walking across the map all the time, but the music helped.

My medallion seems to have been upgraded, since it informs me that I can use it once more, even after I used it the third time! However, I also encountered a game crash described below.

Spoiler

Error statement: (ACI version 3.10.1050) in "room9.asc", line 300 Error: AnimateCharacter: invalid loop number specified

This occurs after having used the medallion on the code of the safe, when I use the hand cursor on the code display to see what the number was. This was also the third time I used the medallion (cemetary gate, safe keyhole, safe code) and the medallion informs me that I can still use it one more time. I haven't recharged it, but I have restored the game a couple of times.

[close]

EDIT: About the medallion, I may have restored back to a time when I had used it only once, so I'm not sure about my being able to use it frice (or whatever four times should be called).

limbo, thank you for the kind words.

I am glad you like Venator. I'll take a look at that game crash as soon as I have time.

Quote from: Sslaxx on Thu 10/11/2011 13:12:56
Could you please use a more standard compression? I've got nothing that handles .ACE - why not use 7Zip?

+1

My sour old computer finally agreed to download a zip file compressor. Here is a link to a 7zip file.

http://www.mediafire.com/?gtfc2vub46dtp2b (http://www.mediafire.com/?gtfc2vub46dtp2b)

Late, but finally I found that da**ed last item needed (searching at wrong places made it last „a bit“ longer) ;D

Now I can reply to your „hopes“:
Yes Darkdan, you made Tabata happy with your game! (http://www.smileyvault.com/albums/userpics/12962/mouse.gif)

I already loved Gilbert, when you showed the screenies in the GIP-Thread â€" even more after you came up with the studies of him, but playing this one is the best. You did very nice animations (not only to him!). This little fellow is such a cute character and well worked out. You did a good job for all the different characters being individual. You made wonderful unique backgrounds, created nice puzzles, told a lovely story and the dialogs are funny (especially Edgars).
Beside some little bugs, the only thing to change was the walking speed on the map. Since you already made an update with him faster walking, that should be okay now.
So I just have left the recommendation to take some beta-testers for the hopefully lot of more games to come to make them perfect. ;)

You offered us a really wonderful story! Congatulation for your first one! (http://www.smileyvault.com/albums/userpics/12962/respect.gif)

Tabata,

I am really glad you like Venator. It is nice to create a game and even more enjoyable when people like to play this game  :D

New image ad for the game  :)

Uploaded today a new version of Venator with numerous corrections in dialogs.

Many thanks to jenumba for his great proofreading work.

Quote from: Darkdan on Fri 03/02/2012 16:38:14
Uploaded today a new version of Venator with numerous corrections in dialogs.

Many thanks to jenumba for his great proofreading work.

No problem! Even though I do like pixel art AGS games, my favorite ones are the cartoony/illustrative ones. It was a pleasure to help out a game developer that made a game that looked great, and played great!

Yup, this is my first post. Long time lurker, first time poster.